Spooky Welcome Sign - Printable

One day this past spring I heard quite a commotion in my yard.  When I went to investigate, I found dozens and dozens of birds squawking and carrying on.  It really was kind of like a scene from The Birds, and kind of gave me the eebie jeebies.

 

I'm much more about pretty fall decorations this time of year than all the gory stuff, but there is something kind of enticing about old, creepy houses.  When I saw this image on The Graphics Fairy's site - I thought it would be fun to marry it with my bird picture to make a spooky Welcome sign.  To see this image on her site, go here.

 

 

I took the color out of my bird picture and heightened the contrast quite a bit.  Then I overlapped it onto the Graphics Fairy image, and finally added some texture.

You're welcome to print one for yourself, if you like.  And please stop by anytime - pay no attention to my little welcoming party at the front gate.  I think they'll let you enter......

 

Happy Autumn Y'all - 8x10 Printable

I put together a little Autumn printable.  If you'd like to print it - just save it to your computer, open a Word document, insert the pic from your computer and then adjust the size to 8x10.

I Laughed So Hard - 5 x 7 Printable

I don't really know what to say about this printable except - it really needs no explanation.  Either it makes a lot of sense to you, or it makes no sense at all.

I have a couple people in my life that this will make a lot of sense to - and that's all I can say on the subject!

Love Gives Us A Fairytale - 8 x 10 Printable

I saw this quote on a stamp at Hobby Lobby last week and decided I wanted to frame it.  If you would like to frame this also, just click on the picture and save it to your computer.  Then you can go into Word, insert a picture into your document, enlarge it - and print.  

 You can also go to www.picmonkey.com and pull it up to edit it.  If you click on the magic wand icon on the left and then select TINT - you can actually change its color to fit your decor.

Or perhaps you might like to select OMBRE and have a sign that looks more like this.  Just be sure to save it back to your computer with a new name.

Enjoy!

Today Is A Good Day For A Good Day - 8x10 Printable

Today Is A Good Day For A Good Day!

I saw this quote this week, and it really spoke to me.  With so much sadness in the world - suicide, senseless deaths overseas and at home, a devastating virus, loved ones lost in car accidents - It almost feels like there is no room for anything but despair.

  

I know grief, and there is definitely a time for grieving.  It is one of the things that makes us human.  In my own life, I have found when you lose someone very dear to you - there really is no end to grieving.  Deep Love = Deep Grief.  And yet, after a long while, you just learn to live differently.  I think that is why this statement means so much to me, because it is a reminder that even in the midst of the sadness and loss - it is OK to give or take permission to have a Good Day.  My loss will not be less over time (that is such a lie - don't believe it), but it does not have to have victory over me.

What about you?  

Are you in need of permission to have a Good Day?  

Please do, my dear reader.  

Today IS a Good Day For A Good Day!

The picture above was taken by my lovely husband in Eureka Springs, AR.  I saw the gate and was immediately drawn to it.  It is old and weathered and worn, but it is still standing looking gorgeous.  I love how welcoming it is to a soul, as if it is saying, "Come venture past the weeds and the shadows - do you see that beautiful day just ahead?  It is all yours 

to enjoy."

PicMonkey - How to Combine Graphics for a Custom Design - Ballerina Picture

Today I'd like to show you how to take some free graphics that are available to you on the web, and combine them to make something unique and special.  I'm using 2 graphics that I downloaded from the Graphics Fairy to make a pretty picture to hang in a little girl's room.

 

 

When I open PicMonkey (see below), I am going to select Edit, and then choose the decorative frame graphic pictured above that is now saved to my computer.

Next, I'm going to click on the butterfly icon on the left, which allows me to add stickers to my picture

and I'm going to select Your Own at the very top.  While many of PicMonkey's features are free, this is one you will need to pay for, but it is awfully fun for the price.  I think it is only $5 to have all the upgrades for an entire month.

At this point I can now select any other picture I have saved on my computer to add to the picture I am editing.  I will now choose the ballerina.  (I did a little cropping and editing on this picture, and saved it back to my computer beforehand.)

Notice it is not blending very well, so I will now look to the pop-up editing box which automatically appears when you add a sticker (see it on the far right in the above pic).  Just click down through the Blend options to Darken, and that should blend your pictures together perfectly.

I finished this picture by adding an initial to the top.  All that is left is to save this back to my computer, giving it a new name.  It is ready to insert into Word or some other software to size and print it.

This is a great tool for making personalized invitations, cards, jewelry, gifts.....really the options are limitless!  Think you'll give this a try?  Let me know how it goes.

Thanks for stopping by the Tub!

Ellie

Circle Cropping for Projects

Today I have a tutorial to share with you for cropping a perfect circle to use in your crafts, decorating, jewelry, labels, jar lids, scrapbooking - whatever you need a perfect circle for.  You can actually do ovals, squares, and other shapes once you get the hang of it, but I'm demonstrating with a circle since I find I often need one.  The great part is you only need your computer and printer, and you do not have to purchase anything special.  In fact, the online photo editor I use to do this -while they do offer a subscription to get other special effects - everything to do this application is FREE.  The photo editor I'm using is called PicMonkey, but there are others like Ribbet that you could also use.

So, go to PicMonkey.com and click on the Edit a Photo link.

Pull up the picture you want to crop from your computer, the cloud or wherever you have pictures stored, 

and select the Crop button.

Now, on the pull-down menu, select Square.

A highlighted square will appear.

Position the square highlighted box over your 

picture, centering the area you want for your circle,

then adjust the size to the smallest square possible 

that still includes the area you wish to include.  

Click Apply.

Next, click on the Frames link on the left of your screen,

and select Rounded Corners,  

check the box that says Transparent Corners,

then slide the Corner Value Slide all the way to the right.  

(See the aqua arrow)

Finally, Save your rounded picture back to your 

computer giving it a new name.

 Handsome boys if ever I've seen!

When you are ready to print the picture, go to Microsoft Word, click on the Insert button, and select the Picture icon.  Your picture will then show up on your page.  Notice on the right a place for dimensions (see aqua arrow).  Change what is there to fit the size of circle you are needing.

For my locket I received as a gift, I chose .90 and it created a perfect fit.  Just measure the space you want to put a circle in and input that dimension in fractions of an inch.  If you need a 3 / 4 " circle - use . 75.

I hope you have a lot of fun with this!

Happy cropping, and thanks for stopping by the Tub!

Ellie

Fun Free Photo Effects From Ribbet

One of my favorite things to come out of blogging has been that I've learned more about taking and editing pictures.  I'm still not a wiz on Photo Shop or anything, but I have become pretty familiar with some of the on-line editors - and at least I can say I'm better than I once was.  I have a long way to go, but that's part of the fun of this journey.

Today, I thought I'd share a couple of techniques I've figured out that might be fun for you to use in your crafting.  I used the free on-line editor called Ribbet to create these effects, but you could achieve the same results using PicMonkey.  PicMonkey used to be free, but they started charging for several of their features a few weeks ago.  At some point, they all need to make some money, but for now Ribbet is still free - hence I am using it these days.

For these projects, I first downloaded some black and white pictures from The Graphics Fairy onto my computer. I thought this Typography piece was especially pretty.

I changed it to this

by following these few simple steps:

1.  Go to ribbet.com and upload the picture you downloaded from The Graphics Fairy

2.  At the top of the screen you will see a tab that says Edit, and under it a link that says Touch -up.  Click that link.

3.  Go to the frog for Eye Color

4.  On the rainbow, move the little white circle until you find a color you like.  I chose a bright teal. 

5.  Slide the brush size to the largest size and then begin coloring your black and white picture with the big circle.  The black on your picture should turn to the color you selected.

Isn't that fun?  It's like when we used to paint those pictures with plain water and the paint would magically appear.

Here is another example:
 

 

For a final fun effect, follow all of the steps above, except for #3.  Instead of Eye Color, choose the Blush frog.  Instead of painting your ink, this will instead paint your background.

Wouldn't this make a cute pillow to print on fabric?

If you have any trouble with this, let me know and I will try to make it more clear.  Otherwise, I hope this gives you some new crafting resources that are completely free.

Thanks for stopping by the tub,

Ellie         

Mary and Baby Jesus

It's Christmas season!  Wow, can this time of year get busy.

I've been crafting up a storm and haven't posted much in the last couple of days, but I should have some things to share soon.

Until then, I thought I'd share this Mary and Baby Jesus picture from the Graphics Fairy, found here.

I love the Nativity and have collected some stunning sets over the years. They are really the only think I like to collect, but I'm pretty particular about how they look.  It just doesn't feel right when the figures look European, and Mary and the Christ child have blond hair.  I must have shared my disdain with my children, because when they made this nativity for me a few years ago, they made sure to point out that everyone was painted Biblically accurate per their understanding.  That made me sooo happy!

So, while I liked the image above -  I decided Mary and Baby Jesus needed to look a little less fair.  Here is my remake of the above image:

Now, to make some cards or ornaments.......

I'll update this post when I do.

Thanks for stopping by the tub,

Ellie

Picmonkey - Fun Craft/Photo Effects For Free

To create this Vintage Clock Upcycle found here,

I used a couple of different images from The Graphics Fairy and combined them using Picmonkey.

Picmonkey is a free photo editor that anyone can access to edit their own pictures.  If you go to picmonkey.com - you can upload your picture of choice, edit it, and then save it to your computer.

There are also fun edits you can make to free images from sources like The Graphics Fairy.  For example, here are a couple of images I downloaded from her site -

 - and combined to create this custom image :

To create my custom design, I started with the french label and then used the Overlays in Picmonkey to block out everything I didn't want to keep.  I used a combination of rectangles and ovals, and placed them over top of the wording.

On the pop-up editor that pops up when you add an Overlay, I then changed the black shapes to white.  If there are still some small areas that need to be removed, you can go into Touch Up and use the Clone feature to fix them.  Just be sure to click on a clean spot on the picture to be the source, and then click on top of the spot to be removed.  I think you'll get the hang of this with a little practice.

At this point, I saved the image back to my computer.  I might want to use the label empty like this sometime, but, also, it makes it cleaner to work with when I add more overlays.  In other words, I won't have to worry about graphic boxes overlapping and moving images from front to back, etc.

To add the 2nd image to the first, I went into Overlays and at the very top - I clicked on Your Own.  Picmonkey should pull up your pictures from your computer.  Select your Graphics Fairy image from wherever you happened to save it.  Once the tub appeared as a sticker on top of my label, I manipulated its size by dragging the corner of the image frame and positioned it on the label where I wanted it.  Using the pop-up editor, I changed the color of the tub from black to the same lavender of the label.  The color was still a little intense, so I used the Fade slide to tone it down a bit.  Finally, I added some text using the Text button, and my custom label was complete.

This is the same method I used on the cold creme clock face.  By removing the border of the clock face and saving it back to my computer, I could then pull it up as on Overlay to place on top of the cold cream label.  After positioning it in place, I simply lightened the color of the Roman Numerals by using the color guide and the Fade slide button.  Once I saved it back to my computer, I was able to insert this new image into a Word document and print it whatever size I needed.

I am certainly NOT a techy person - at all - so if this is clear as mud, I'm so sorry.  Please let me know if you have any questions, and I will do my best to answer them.  Or, if you have comments as to better ways to achieve these results, I welcome those, too!

I hope you will play around with Picmonkey and see what you come up with.  I edit all of my pictures there, and  I'm finding so many fun new ideas to craft with.

Final thoughts:  If you print with the intent to decoupage, I would suggest printing a sample first to see if the decoupage medium smears your ink.  Also, I would think you could upload your new image to Walgreens, etc., to get picture quality to craft with.

Thanks for stopping by the tub!

Ellie

Parties I Will Be Linking To:

Sunday - The Sunday Showcase Party at Under The Table and Dreaming, DIY Project Parade at The DIY Showoff   

Monday – Brag Monday at The Grapics Fairy  Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch

Tuesday - Show Me What Ya Got at Not Just a Housewife,  

Wednesday - Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style, 

Thursday - Open House Party at No Minimalist Here,   Catch As Catch Can at My Repurposed Life

Friday - Furniture Feature Friday at Miss Mustard Seed, Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage, Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home, Weekend Wrap up Party at Tatertots and Jello  

Paper Fabric

Sometimes when I'm decorating a room or making a project, I realize the amount of fabric I purchased is not going to be enough.  That may be due to poor planning or a mistake, but usually it is because I fall in love with the fabric as I'm working with it, and keep thinking of more things I wish to add to the room.

 When Baby Girl purchased this fabric for her nursery - she bought all they had.  We were very careful with the fabric and managed to make it stretch for all of her original ideas. However, as we were decorating the walls we realized that putting some of the paisley fabric in the frames above the crib would tie things together very nicely.  The problem was there was not much fabric left, and we were concerned about making a mistake when we cut out a "P" to frame.

I suggested to Baby Girl that she make some color photo copies of the fabric for us to practice different fonts with. Once we came up with the perfect option - we could then cut the "P" from the original fabric.

Much to both of our delight, the copies turned out Amazing! You can't really tell from my pictures, but the colors are extremely vibrant, and the clarity is perfect.  She made 11" x 17" color copies at a copy store, and they cost her about 55 cents each. 

Since the quality was so high, we decided the paper would be a better choice to cut the "P" from, and thus she could save her remaining bit of fabric for another project.

At 55 cents a copy, I don't necessarily think this option ends up being cheaper than purchasing another yard of fabric, but it certainly opens up some new project options - like enlarging/reducing the pattern, decoupaging with some cut-outs, or making scrapbook pages.  I also don't know if the paper will fade faster than fabric, or if it will smear with Mod Podge, anybody know?  I would also be careful with the fabric copyright if you choose to make copies to use on items to sell.

Happily, this is the last project (well, until we think of more) to finish Paisley's nursery.  It's a good thing, because Baby Girl is due on May 1!  I'll be sure to share pics when she gets the frames up.

Thanks for stopping by,

Ellie


To see the "P" framed, go here

Parties I Will Be Linking To:

Sunday - The Sunday Showcase Party at Under The Table and Dreaming, DIY Project Parade at The DIY Showoff   

Monday -  Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch

Tuesday - Show Me What Ya Got at Not Just a Housewife,  

Wednesday - Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style, 

Thursday - Open House Party at No Minimalist Here,   Catch As Catch Can at My Repurposed Life

Friday -  Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage, Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home, Weekend Wrap up Party at Tatertots and Jello